‘But if the market had stayed open it would have meant more money coming in for Millensea!’
He shrugged. ‘Some would say that a lot of the market stallholders came from Hull and further afield, not from here. And the day trippers who came for the market often used to bring a picnic with them, rather than spend money on burgers and fish and chips. I know we did. You could argue that the market didn’t benefit Millensea as much as we think, and the supermarket’s benefitted the residents more.’
Alison didn’t see it that way. ‘The market was such a big attraction that it enticed people to buy caravans here. People used to stay on the holiday parks and spend in the shops and amusements.’
‘Plenty still do.’
‘Hmm.’ She nodded down at the beach below where a vast number of huge grey boulders were stacked up all along the edge of the sea wall. ‘They don’t help, do they? So ugly. We had lovely clear sands when we were kids. Who wants to sit on a beach full of hideous boulders?’
‘Firstly, the beach isn’t full of boulders,’ Mac pointed out reasonably. ‘Look how far the sands stretch! And more importantly, they’re helping to keep the erosion at bay. If they hadn’t been put in place, we might not be standing here now.’
Alison gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Do you always see the good in everything?’
He grinned. ‘It’s not that. I just think maybe you live in the past too much. You see it as some sort of wonderful haven where nothing bad ever happened and everything was so much better.’
‘Well, it was,’ she said heavily. ‘And so much simpler, too.’
‘I think you’re being very selective with your memories,’ he said. ‘And yes, Millensea was probably busier back then, and yes, I’ll admit it does look a bit run-down these days, compared to what it was when we were kids. But so do most seaside towns, let’s face it. They don’t have the pull they used to. And councils are broke, so it must be hard for them to maintain them as well as they’d like.’
‘I suppose…’
‘I think the Promenade Gardens look lovely,’ he added, turning round to look at the sunken area of land that had once been a mere but which had been filled in back in the early twentieth century to form a leisure area, where people of the town could stroll, sit on benches, listen to the music coming from the old bandstand and admire the beautiful flowerbeds. In recent times the old bandstand had been replaced with a modern canopied stage, and a cafe had been added. ‘The council runs a few events from there, too.Andthey’re free.’
‘How do you know all this anyway? You’ve been away for years!’
‘There’s an amazing thing I’ve discovered recently,’ he deadpanned. ‘It’s called the internet. It will blow your mind.’
‘Very funny.’
‘Seriously, though, don’t you think there’s something charming about this place? I know it’s not got the seaside glamour and all the bells and whistles of somewhere like Scarborough or Burlington-on-Sea, but there’s something about it, don’t you think?’
Alison was quiet for a moment. She let her gaze wander beyond the Promenade Gardens to the row of amusements, now dominated by Games Master, an amusement centre and cafe which had taken the place of three of the old independent companies. Other than that, the row looked pretty much as it had when she was a kid.
You could still get a good fried breakfast from some of the cafes inside them, and on the end of the row was the Seaside Shop, which sold buckets and spades and all the usual paraphernalia for a seaside holiday, along with sticks of rock and ice cream.
Across the road, next to the small children’s fairground, was her favourite childhood cafe. The cheeseburgers there had been to die for. Ordering a cheeseburger and a milkshake, she and her teenage pals had felt as if they were living in the filmGrease. It had all seemed so exotic and wonderful back then!
The town still had its old pubs, its fish and chip shops and its little gift shops. Sadly, the old Woolworths where she’d spent many a happy Saturday afternoon with her schoolmates had been replaced with a large frozen food shop, and there were more charity shops and takeaways, and even the odd empty unit, but even so, it was still recognisably Millensea, and it had still given her a thrill when she and Rosie had spotted the sign welcoming them to the town earlier that day, and they’d caught a glimpse of the white lighthouse which stood in the centre of the town. It hadn’t been a functioning lighthouse for decades, and was now a tearoom and museum, but it looked beautiful. Familiar. Comforting. Not many seaside places had a lighthouse down a street, had they?
‘I’ve been sent an appointment,’ she said, unable to hide the gloom at the thought of it. She hadn’t even mentioned it to Rosie because she really didn’t want to talk about it, but somehow Mac had a way of coaxing her to talk without even trying.
He turned to face her. ‘What sort of appointment?’
‘Retinal eye screening,’ she said. ‘Apparently, even though I’m not on any medication or anything, I’m still classed as diabetic, and I need to get my eyes checked.’
‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it?’
‘No,’ she said stubbornly. ‘It isn’t. I’ve heard it’s really uncomfortable, and to be honest…’
‘What?’ he asked curiously.
She heaved a sigh. ‘Okay, the truth is I hate hospitals and doctors and anything medical. I’ll avoid them as much as I possibly can. I know you won’t understand, and you’ll think I’m stupid but?—’
‘Since Drew’s illness?’ he asked gently.
She nodded tearfully, grateful that he seemed to understand after all. ‘It was all so awful, and I’ve been scared ever since. I just want them to leave me alone, but they keep calling me in for this, that and the other, especially since I turned sixty.’
‘I know what you mean,’ he said. ‘I had to send in a sample a couple of months ago. You don’t want to know what of.’
